Book Review: American Imperialism in the Image of Peer Gyntby E. A. J. Johnson

BOOK REVIEW
E. Å. J . Johnson, A M E R I C A N I M P E R I A L I S M I N T H E I M A G E O F P E ER
GYNT. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. 352 pp. $12.75.
Edgar Johnson's parents, both born in Östergötland, became as youths
parts of the great Swedish emigration to America. The father was
alienated from the home society at about age 15 when his mother died
and his father remarried, and within a few years he saved enough money
for passage. The mother worked as a domestic first in Sweden, then in the
States; she was helped to America by two brothers who had migrated
earlier. Both parents came from the bottom rungs of Swedish rural society
and both were well prepared for the hard work of the frontier. They knew
each other in Sweden, met again in Illinois, and established themselves on
a small farm near Orion, llinois. Their skill and initiative made it prosper,
and they passed on to their children a heritage of discipline, high standards
in work, and a drive to accomplish—also the independence of spirit that
made them Methodists and that led this son to renounce religious
affiliation. It was in his childhood and the years on through the small town
high school in Orion that he learned how
In a sense every conjugal Swedish immigrant family belonged to a
larger extended family, not necessarily a kinship group, but a grouping
determined by the circumstances and vicissitudes of migration. My
mother, her sister, and her brothers, for example, had been given initial
hospitality by a family that had migrated from a neighboring Swedish
village, and we therefore belonged to their family grouping. In the
same way I recall how, one by one, distant friends or relatives of my
mother would arrive and stay with us until they found employment.
After they were more or less settled they still, in a rather indefinable
way, seemed to belong to our family. If they were unmarried they
would appear from time to time and stay a few days almost as if
it was their right to do so (p. 27).
So far the story could be paralleled 10,000 times.
The special experiences of his adult life make up the bulk of Johnson's
memoirs. He studied at the University of Illinois and went on to his
doctoral work at Harvard. His teaching career took him to ten American
universities beginning with Oklahoma and including Cornell, New York
University and Johns Hopkins. Trained as an economic historian and with
inborn eager ambition he was instrumental in founding the Economic
History Association and editing its Journal of E c o n o m i c H i s t o r y ; he wrote
his own quota of articles and books and edited an influential series for
Prentice-Hall. At various points in the autobiography the author has
shrewd comments to make on the academic scene.
45
The chapters on government and wartime service will be of most general
interest. The writer is not at all modest (in fact he is downright pompous)
in pointing out how his combination of ability and training fitted him to
carry out with exceptional efficiency the tasks for which he was chosen.
From his cavalry training at the University of Illinois he went into the
army reserves and, despite a hiatus of a few years, he was ready in 1943
for a commission as major in the civil affairs branch. He tells in
fascinating manner of his preparatory research in England and his help
in the reconstruction of Norway. Here he administered supplies, such as the
immense German liquor reserve, in the way most citizens would like to
see their interests guarded in all parts of the world. But the Norwegians
were soon able to manage their own affairs, and Johnson was sent down to
Germany for still bigger problems.
Years of excitement and responsibility in handling vital human affairs
did not prepare the former professor for the cold shoulder from his
colleagues when he returned to home and academic life. Quite naturally
he responded to a new call from government and went off to Korea; for
several years of alternating peace and war he worked with Korean problems
both there and in Washington. Later assignments in Greece and Yugoslavia
seem a bit anti-climactic, and they ended in profound disillusionment with
government and government personnel, most fundamentally, perhaps, in
disgust with the lack of far-sighted planning and consistency in policy.
His severest strictures are applied to Harold Stassen and John Foster
Dulles. Johnson had also made things difficult for himself by indiscreet
criticisms made to a Yugoslav cleric. With relief, but at his own chosen
moment, he turned in his resignation and made the following comment:
No one ought to accept government employment unless he has an
outside income, for only then can he be protected against the capricious
power of timid bureaucrats. In my case I had double protection: I had
had the wisdom and good fortune to achieve financial independence
before I reached my fortieth birthday, and I had the professional
training which would allow me, if I wanted more income, to find an
academic position to my liking (p. 274).
He found the almost ideal position at the Johns Hopkins Center in Bo­logna
and the School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, and
his last years before retirement were spent with deep satisfaction in teaching
and writing.
Out of this rich totality of experience and travel comes the underlying
philosophy of the memoir. For better or for worse it is buttressed with only
the detail of Johnson's own experience, no broad historical treatment. The
theme is that most of us humans, and Americans in particular, want to do
good, but we want this not strongly enough to avoid a multitude of petty
sins in the process. We have been in our overseas policy "opportunistic
and essentially amateurish," "shoddy, impulsive, indeed almost reckless."
Our supposedly "enlightened imperialism, inspired as it so often was by
very good intentions, has nevertheless, in wholly unexpected ways, dis-
46
tressed and embittered people in many foreign countries and has seriously
undermined <the enviable reputation we had at the end of World War II"
(p. 10). In comparison with others we have been, like Peer Gynt, "little
sinners," but we have failed to live up to our potential, failed to realize
our magnificent program. Hence, like Peer Gynt, we may be saved from
the fiery griddle only to go into the casting ladle to be made into lead
buttons.
From the Swedish community in Orion, Illinois, to the fields of academe,
to Scandinavia and England and Germany, to Korea and Greece and
Yugoslavia, is a thought-provoking journey through life, wholly personal,
yet touching on universals. ftc
47
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BOOK REVIEW
E. Å. J . Johnson, A M E R I C A N I M P E R I A L I S M I N T H E I M A G E O F P E ER
GYNT. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. 352 pp. $12.75.
Edgar Johnson's parents, both born in Östergötland, became as youths
parts of the great Swedish emigration to America. The father was
alienated from the home society at about age 15 when his mother died
and his father remarried, and within a few years he saved enough money
for passage. The mother worked as a domestic first in Sweden, then in the
States; she was helped to America by two brothers who had migrated
earlier. Both parents came from the bottom rungs of Swedish rural society
and both were well prepared for the hard work of the frontier. They knew
each other in Sweden, met again in Illinois, and established themselves on
a small farm near Orion, llinois. Their skill and initiative made it prosper,
and they passed on to their children a heritage of discipline, high standards
in work, and a drive to accomplish—also the independence of spirit that
made them Methodists and that led this son to renounce religious
affiliation. It was in his childhood and the years on through the small town
high school in Orion that he learned how
In a sense every conjugal Swedish immigrant family belonged to a
larger extended family, not necessarily a kinship group, but a grouping
determined by the circumstances and vicissitudes of migration. My
mother, her sister, and her brothers, for example, had been given initial
hospitality by a family that had migrated from a neighboring Swedish
village, and we therefore belonged to their family grouping. In the
same way I recall how, one by one, distant friends or relatives of my
mother would arrive and stay with us until they found employment.
After they were more or less settled they still, in a rather indefinable
way, seemed to belong to our family. If they were unmarried they
would appear from time to time and stay a few days almost as if
it was their right to do so (p. 27).
So far the story could be paralleled 10,000 times.
The special experiences of his adult life make up the bulk of Johnson's
memoirs. He studied at the University of Illinois and went on to his
doctoral work at Harvard. His teaching career took him to ten American
universities beginning with Oklahoma and including Cornell, New York
University and Johns Hopkins. Trained as an economic historian and with
inborn eager ambition he was instrumental in founding the Economic
History Association and editing its Journal of E c o n o m i c H i s t o r y ; he wrote
his own quota of articles and books and edited an influential series for
Prentice-Hall. At various points in the autobiography the author has
shrewd comments to make on the academic scene.
45
The chapters on government and wartime service will be of most general
interest. The writer is not at all modest (in fact he is downright pompous)
in pointing out how his combination of ability and training fitted him to
carry out with exceptional efficiency the tasks for which he was chosen.
From his cavalry training at the University of Illinois he went into the
army reserves and, despite a hiatus of a few years, he was ready in 1943
for a commission as major in the civil affairs branch. He tells in
fascinating manner of his preparatory research in England and his help
in the reconstruction of Norway. Here he administered supplies, such as the
immense German liquor reserve, in the way most citizens would like to
see their interests guarded in all parts of the world. But the Norwegians
were soon able to manage their own affairs, and Johnson was sent down to
Germany for still bigger problems.
Years of excitement and responsibility in handling vital human affairs
did not prepare the former professor for the cold shoulder from his
colleagues when he returned to home and academic life. Quite naturally
he responded to a new call from government and went off to Korea; for
several years of alternating peace and war he worked with Korean problems
both there and in Washington. Later assignments in Greece and Yugoslavia
seem a bit anti-climactic, and they ended in profound disillusionment with
government and government personnel, most fundamentally, perhaps, in
disgust with the lack of far-sighted planning and consistency in policy.
His severest strictures are applied to Harold Stassen and John Foster
Dulles. Johnson had also made things difficult for himself by indiscreet
criticisms made to a Yugoslav cleric. With relief, but at his own chosen
moment, he turned in his resignation and made the following comment:
No one ought to accept government employment unless he has an
outside income, for only then can he be protected against the capricious
power of timid bureaucrats. In my case I had double protection: I had
had the wisdom and good fortune to achieve financial independence
before I reached my fortieth birthday, and I had the professional
training which would allow me, if I wanted more income, to find an
academic position to my liking (p. 274).
He found the almost ideal position at the Johns Hopkins Center in Bo­logna
and the School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, and
his last years before retirement were spent with deep satisfaction in teaching
and writing.
Out of this rich totality of experience and travel comes the underlying
philosophy of the memoir. For better or for worse it is buttressed with only
the detail of Johnson's own experience, no broad historical treatment. The
theme is that most of us humans, and Americans in particular, want to do
good, but we want this not strongly enough to avoid a multitude of petty
sins in the process. We have been in our overseas policy "opportunistic
and essentially amateurish," "shoddy, impulsive, indeed almost reckless."
Our supposedly "enlightened imperialism, inspired as it so often was by
very good intentions, has nevertheless, in wholly unexpected ways, dis-
46
tressed and embittered people in many foreign countries and has seriously
undermined